Don Quixote Part 96

Night, longed for by Don Quixote with the greatest anxiety in the world, came at last, though it seemed to him that the wheels of Apollo's car had broken down, and that the day was drawing itself out longer than usual, just as is the case with lovers, who never make the reckoning of their desires agree with time. They made their way at length in among some pleasant trees that stood a little distance from the road, and there vacating Rocinante's saddle and Dapple's pack-saddle, they stretched themselves on the green gra.s.s and made their supper off Sancho's stores, and he making a powerful and flexible whip out of Dapple's halter and headstall retreated about twenty paces from his master among some beech trees. Don Quixote seeing him march off with such resolution and spirit, said to him, "Take care, my friend, not to cut thyself to pieces; allow the lashes to wait for one another, and do not be in so great a hurry as to run thyself out of breath midway; I mean, do not lay on so strenuously as to make thy life fail thee before thou hast reached the desired number; and that thou mayest not lose by a card too much or too little, I will station myself apart and count on my rosary here the lashes thou givest thyself. May heaven help thee as thy good intention deserves."

"'Pledges don't distress a good payer,'" said Sancho; "I mean to lay on in such a way as without killing myself to hurt myself, for in that, no doubt, lies the essence of this miracle."

He then stripped himself from the waist upwards, and s.n.a.t.c.hing up the rope he began to lay on and Don Quixote to count the lashes. He might have given himself six or eight when he began to think the joke no trifle, and its price very low; and holding his hand for a moment, he told his master that he cried off on the score of a blind bargain, for each of those lashes ought to be paid for at the rate of half a real instead of a quarter.

"Go on, Sancho my friend, and be not disheartened," said Don Quixote; "for I double the stakes as to price."

"In that case," said Sancho, "in G.o.d's hand be it, and let it rain lashes." But the rogue no longer laid them on his shoulders, but laid on to the trees, with such groans every now and then, that one would have thought at each of them his soul was being plucked up by the roots. Don Quixote, touched to the heart, and fearing he might make an end of himself, and that through Sancho's imprudence he might miss his own object, said to him, "As thou livest, my friend, let the matter rest where it is, for the remedy seems to me a very rough one, and it will be well to have patience; 'Zamora was not won in an hour.' If I have not reckoned wrong thou hast given thyself over a thousand lashes; that is enough for the present; 'for the a.s.s,' to put it in homely phrase, 'bears the load, but not the overload.'"

"No, no, senor," replied Sancho; "it shall never be said of me, 'The money paid, the arms broken;' go back a little further, your worship, and let me give myself at any rate a thousand lashes more; for in a couple of bouts like this we shall have finished off the lot, and there will be even cloth to spare."

"As thou art in such a willing mood," said Don Quixote, "may heaven aid thee; lay on and I'll retire."

Sancho returned to his task with so much resolution that he soon had the bark stripped off several trees, such was the severity with which he whipped himself; and one time, raising his voice, and giving a beech a tremendous lash, he cried out, "Here dies Samson, and all with him!"

At the sound of his piteous cry and of the stroke of the cruel lash, Don Quixote ran to him at once, and seizing the twisted halter that served him for a courbash, said to him, "Heaven forbid, Sancho my friend, that to please me thou shouldst lose thy life, which is needed for the support of thy wife and children; let Dulcinea wait for a better opportunity, and I will content myself with a hope soon to be realised, and have patience until thou hast gained fresh strength so as to finish off this business to the satisfaction of everybody."

"As your worship will have it so, senor," said Sancho, "so be it; but throw your cloak over my shoulders, for I'm sweating and I don't want to take cold; it's a risk that novice disciplinants run."

Don Quixote obeyed, and stripping himself covered Sancho, who slept until the sun woke him; they then resumed their journey, which for the time being they brought to an end at a village that lay three leagues farther on. They dismounted at a hostelry which Don Quixote recognised as such and did not take to be a castle with moat, turrets, portcullis, and drawbridge; for ever since he had been vanquished he talked more rationally about everything, as will be shown presently. They quartered him in a room on the ground floor, where in place of leather hangings there were pieces of painted serge such as they commonly use in villages.

On one of them was painted by some very poor hand the Rape of Helen, when the bold guest carried her off from Menelaus, and on the other was the story of Dido and AEneas, she on a high tower, as though she were making signals with a half sheet to her fugitive guest who was out at sea flying in a frigate or brigantine. He noticed in the two stories that Helen did not go very reluctantly, for she was laughing slyly and roguishly; but the fair Dido was shown dropping tears the size of walnuts from her eyes.

Don Quixote as he looked at them observed, "Those two ladies were very unfortunate not to have been born in this age, and I unfortunate above all men not to have been born in theirs. Had I fallen in with those gentlemen, Troy would not have been burned or Carthage destroyed, for it would have been only for me to slay Paris, and all these misfortunes would have been avoided."

"I'll lay a bet," said Sancho, "that before long there won't be a tavern, roadside inn, hostelry, or barber's shop where the story of our doings won't be painted up; but I'd like it painted by the hand of a better painter than painted these."

"Thou art right, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "for this painter is like Orbaneja, a painter there was at Ubeda, who when they asked him what he was painting, used to say, 'Whatever it may turn out; and if he chanced to paint a c.o.c.k he would write under it, 'This is a c.o.c.k,' for fear they might think it was a fox. The painter or writer, for it's all the same, who published the history of this new Don Quixote that has come out, must have been one of this sort I think, Sancho, for he painted or wrote 'whatever it might turn out;' or perhaps he is like a poet called Mauleon that was about the Court some years ago, who used to answer at haphazard whatever he was asked, and on one asking him what Deum de Deo meant, he replied De donde diere. But, putting this aside, tell me, Sancho, hast thou a mind to have another turn at thyself to-night, and wouldst thou rather have it indoors or in the open air?"

"Egad, senor," said Sancho, "for what I'm going to give myself, it comes all the same to me whether it is in a house or in the fields; still I'd like it to be among trees; for I think they are company for me and help me to bear my pain wonderfully."

"And yet it must not be, Sancho my friend," said Don Quixote; "but, to enable thee to recover strength, we must keep it for our own village; for at the latest we shall get there the day after tomorrow."

Sancho said he might do as he pleased; but that for his own part he would like to finish off the business quickly before his blood cooled and while he had an appet.i.te, because "in delay there is apt to be danger" very often, and "praying to G.o.d and plying the hammer," and "one take was better than two I'll give thee's," and "a sparrow in the hand than a vulture on the wing."

"For G.o.d's sake, Sancho, no more proverbs!" exclaimed Don Quixote; "it seems to me thou art becoming sicut erat again; speak in a plain, simple, straight-forward way, as I have often told thee, and thou wilt find the good of it."

"I don't know what bad luck it is of mine," argument to my mind; however, I mean to mend said Sancho, "but I can't utter a word without a proverb that is not as good as an argument to my mind; however, I mean to mend if I can;" and so for the present the conversation ended.

CHAPTER LXXII.

OF HOW DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO REACHED THEIR VILLAGE

All that day Don Quixote and Sancho remained in the village and inn waiting for night, the one to finish off his task of scourging in the open country, the other to see it accomplished, for therein lay the accomplishment of his wishes. Meanwhile there arrived at the hostelry a traveller on horseback with three or four servants, one of whom said to him who appeared to be the master, "Here, Senor Don Alvaro Tarfe, your worship may take your siesta to-day; the quarters seem clean and cool."

When he heard this Don Quixote said to Sancho, "Look here, Sancho; on turning over the leaves of that book of the Second Part of my history I think I came casually upon this name of Don Alvaro Tarfe."

"Very likely," said Sancho; "we had better let him dismount, and by-and-by we can ask about it."

The gentleman dismounted, and the landlady gave him a room on the ground floor opposite Don Quixote's and adorned with painted serge hangings of the same sort. The newly arrived gentleman put on a summer coat, and coming out to the gateway of the hostelry, which was wide and cool, addressing Don Quixote, who was pacing up and down there, he asked, "In what direction your worship bound, gentle sir?"

"To a village near this which is my own village," replied Don Quixote; "and your worship, where are you bound for?"

"I am going to Granada, senor," said the gentleman, "to my own country."

"And a goodly country," said Don Quixote; "but will your worship do me the favour of telling me your name, for it strikes me it is of more importance to me to know it than I can tell you."

"My name is Don Alvaro Tarfe," replied the traveller.

To which Don Quixote returned, "I have no doubt whatever that your worship is that Don Alvaro Tarfe who appears in print in the Second Part of the history of Don Quixote of La Mancha, lately printed and published by a new author."

"I am the same," replied the gentleman; "and that same Don Quixote, the princ.i.p.al personage in the said history, was a very great friend of mine, and it was I who took him away from home, or at least induced him to come to some jousts that were to be held at Saragossa, whither I was going myself; indeed, I showed him many kindnesses, and saved him from having his shoulders touched up by the executioner because of his extreme rashness."

"Tell me, Senor Don Alvaro," said Don Quixote, "am I at all like that Don Quixote you talk of?"

"No indeed," replied the traveller, "not a bit."

"And that Don Quixote-" said our one, "had he with him a squire called Sancho Panza?"

"He had," said Don Alvaro; "but though he had the name of being very droll, I never heard him say anything that had any drollery in it."

"That I can well believe," said Sancho at this, "for to come out with drolleries is not in everybody's line; and that Sancho your worship speaks of, gentle sir, must be some great scoundrel, dunderhead, and thief, all in one; for I am the real Sancho Panza, and I have more drolleries than if it rained them; let your worship only try; come along with me for a year or so, and you will find they fall from me at every turn, and so rich and so plentiful that though mostly I don't know what I am saying I make everybody that hears me laugh. And the real Don Quixote of La Mancha, the famous, the valiant, the wise, the lover, the righter of wrongs, the guardian of minors and orphans, the protector of widows, the killer of damsels, he who has for his sole mistress the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso, is this gentleman before you, my master; all other Don Quixotes and all other Sancho Panzas are dreams and mockeries."

"By G.o.d I believe it," said Don Alvaro; "for you have uttered more drolleries, my friend, in the few words you have spoken than the other Sancho Panza in all I ever heard from him, and they were not a few. He was more greedy than well-spoken, and more dull than droll; and I am convinced that the enchanters who persecute Don Quixote the Good have been trying to persecute me with Don Quixote the Bad. But I don't know what to say, for I am ready to swear I left him shut up in the Casa del Nuncio at Toledo, and here another Don Quixote turns up, though a very different one from mine."

"I don't know whether I am good," said Don Quixote, "but I can safely say I am not 'the Bad;' and to prove it, let me tell you, Senor Don Alvaro Tarfe, I have never in my life been in Saragossa; so far from that, when it was told me that this imaginary Don Quixote had been present at the jousts in that city, I declined to enter it, in order to drag his falsehood before the face of the world; and so I went on straight to Barcelona, the treasure-house of courtesy, haven of strangers, asylum of the poor, home of the valiant, champion of the wronged, pleasant exchange of firm friendships, and city unrivalled in site and beauty. And though the adventures that befell me there are not by any means matters of enjoyment, but rather of regret, I do not regret them, simply because I have seen it. In a word, Senor Don Alvaro Tarfe, I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, the one that fame speaks of, and not the unlucky one that has attempted to usurp my name and deck himself out in my ideas. I entreat your worship by your devoir as a gentleman to be so good as to make a declaration before the alcalde of this village that you never in all your life saw me until now, and that neither am I the Don Quixote in print in the Second Part, nor this Sancho Panza, my squire, the one your worship knew."

"That I will do most willingly," replied Don Alvaro; "though it amazes me to find two Don Quixotes and two Sancho Panzas at once, as much alike in name as they differ in demeanour; and again I say and declare that what I saw I cannot have seen, and that what happened me cannot have happened."

"No doubt your worship is enchanted, like my lady Dulcinea del Toboso,"

said Sancho; "and would to heaven your disenchantment rested on my giving myself another three thousand and odd lashes like what I'm giving myself for her, for I'd lay them on without looking for anything."

"I don't understand that about the lashes," said Don Alvaro. Sancho replied that it was a long story to tell, but he would tell him if they happened to be going the same road.

By this dinner-time arrived, and Don Quixote and Don Alvaro dined together. The alcalde of the village came by chance into the inn together with a notary, and Don Quixote laid a pet.i.tion before him, showing that it was requisite for his rights that Don Alvaro Tarfe, the gentleman there present, should make a declaration before him that he did not know Don Quixote of La Mancha, also there present, and that he was not the one that was in print in a history ent.i.tled "Second Part of Don Quixote of La Mancha, by one Avellaneda of Tordesillas." The alcalde finally put it in legal form, and the declaration was made with all the formalities required in such cases, at which Don Quixote and Sancho were in high delight, as if a declaration of the sort was of any great importance to them, and as if their words and deeds did not plainly show the difference between the two Don Quixotes and the two Sanchos. Many civilities and offers of service were exchanged by Don Alvaro and Don Quixote, in the course of which the great Manchegan displayed such good taste that he disabused Don Alvaro of the error he was under; and he, on his part, felt convinced he must have been enchanted, now that he had been brought in contact with two such opposite Don Quixotes.

Evening came, they set out from the village, and after about half a league two roads branched off, one leading to Don Quixote's village, the other the road Don Alvaro was to follow. In this short interval Don Quixote told him of his unfortunate defeat, and of Dulcinea's enchantment and the remedy, all which threw Don Alvaro into fresh amazement, and embracing Don Quixote and Sancho he went his way, and Don Quixote went his. That night he pa.s.sed among trees again in order to give Sancho an opportunity of working out his penance, which he did in the same fashion as the night before, at the expense of the bark of the beech trees much more than of his back, of which he took such good care that the lashes would not have knocked off a fly had there been one there. The duped Don Quixote did not miss a single stroke of the count, and he found that together with those of the night before they made up three thousand and twenty-nine. The sun apparently had got up early to witness the sacrifice, and with his light they resumed their journey, discussing the deception practised on Don Alvaro, and saying how well done it was to have taken his declaration before a magistrate in such an unimpeachable form. That day and night they travelled on, nor did anything worth mention happen them, unless it was that in the course of the night Sancho finished off his task, whereat Don Quixote was beyond measure joyful. He watched for daylight, to see if along the road he should fall in with his already disenchanted lady Dulcinea; and as he pursued his journey there was no woman he met that he did not go up to, to see if she was Dulcinea del Toboso, as he held it absolutely certain that Merlin's promises could not lie. Full of these thoughts and anxieties, they ascended a rising ground wherefrom they descried their own village, at the sight of which Sancho fell on his knees exclaiming, "Open thine eyes, longed-for home, and see how thy son Sancho Panza comes back to thee, if not very rich, very well whipped! Open thine arms and receive, too, thy son Don Quixote, who, if he comes vanquished by the arm of another, comes victor over himself, which, as he himself has told me, is the greatest victory anyone can desire. I'm bringing back money, for if I was well whipped, I went mounted like a gentleman."

"Have done with these fooleries," said Don Quixote; "let us push on straight and get to our own place, where we will give free range to our fancies, and settle our plans for our future pastoral life."

With this they descended the slope and directed their steps to their village.

CHAPTER LXXIII.